{"id":204222,"date":"2025-10-11T00:39:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T00:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/204222\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T00:39:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T00:39:13","slug":"mutaz-ready-for-afl-call-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/204222\/","title":{"rendered":"Mutaz ready for AFL call-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

After winning Richmond\u2019s VFL best and fairest Mutaz El Nour is ready for a call-up if an AFL club comes knocking come draft time.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old intercept defender had a break-out season with the Tigers, sharing the club\u2019s top honour with Lachlan Wilson.<\/p>\n

El Nour began his footballing life at St Albans in the under-17s and Hillside while progressing to the VFL program with Northern Bullants and now Richmond.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not inconceivable that El Nour could be a mature-age rookie or a train-on player at AFL level in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely do think that I am up to AFL standard and feel like I can play AFL football,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo having my name thrown around for the past couple of years has been very nice to hear and showing that I\u2019ve actually been putting in the work and playing some good football. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo hopefully that opportunity does arise for me in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

El Nour said he didn\u2019t expect to poll so well in Richmond\u2019s Guinane Medal count. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very, very happy with it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI did not think it was going to happen, but we\u2019re here today, so I\u2019m very happy. <\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, did not think I was going to be a chance whatsoever, so it was a casual night. Literally just rolled in thinking it was just going to be a normal night for me, but obviously that all changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been putting a lot of work in the past couple of years. So to get that achievement, not many people get to actually achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n

El Nour impressed this season as vice-captain with his intercept marking and also made the VFL team of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think once again, just that reward for effort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a goal of mine that I\u2019ve had since I was a young kid playing football.\u201d <\/p>\n

El Nour even found time to play two games at Deer Park this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played a handful of games there as a junior,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty tough and hard for me to leave Caroline Springs, which is a very good club also, but I think going back and seeing the way that the club has progressed over the few years since I was young. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen getting to actually play with some of the senior boys who\u2019ve been playing there since I was playing under 14s was pretty surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

El Nour said Caroline Springs played a huge role in his footy development.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially Terry (Azzopardi) over there, the president, and also Brian Lake, who\u2019s a senior coach there, they\u2019ve helped me a lot when I was there as a junior,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey gave me my first senior game. It was surreal to me at that point. They\u2019ve played a massive part and I\u2019m forever in debt with them also.\u201d<\/p>\n

El Nour grew up in Derrimut, just a hefty torpedo punt from Deer Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I played there and all my schoolmates played there and then moved over to Hillside, which is right next to Caroline Springs,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up I relied on my teammates and friends to actually take me to training and things like that. So that was the only reason why I did end up moving clubs was for that reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

El Nour said his parents \u201cweren\u2019t the biggest of football\u201d when he first started, but had been well and truly swayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents worked full time trying to put food on the table for seven kids,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was pretty hard for them to take me to training and take me to games. They thought it (footy) was a bit rough, but now they\u2019re my biggest supporters. They tune into every game that I play. Luckily, the games are live streamed now in the VFL, so they watch every single game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After winning Richmond\u2019s VFL best and fairest Mutaz El Nour is ready for a call-up if an AFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-204222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}